


bread and honey

by weneedtotalkaboutsherlock (Paradoxe1914)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AA, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Angst, Early retirement!lock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, Healing, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, POV Second Person, Seizures, Service Dogs, Sherlock Holmes and Bees, Suicidal Thoughts, Sussex, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-01-06 10:31:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18386654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradoxe1914/pseuds/weneedtotalkaboutsherlock
Summary: The next thing you are sure and aware of is the mix of mud and water seeping through your shoes as the cabbie drops you in front of the old farmhouse.You do not know this, but today marks the first day of spring.





	1. the emptiness

**Author's Note:**

> There is a graffiti, somewhere in this world, that says Qui ne se plante pas, ne pousse jamais.  
> Because of the ambiguity of the idiom se planter, this quote can have three meanings:  
> Who never makes a mistake, never grows.  
> Who never falls, never grows.   
> Who never plants themselves, never grows.
> 
> This is very much a story about healing. It takes place just as John comes back to London after the war. Please watch out for the tags, because it will be angsty, and if you have any questions at all, you can contact me in the comments, on tumblr or twitter. Do keep in mind that it gets better along the way, and that there's a happy ending.
> 
> This is rated as M, because it doesn't feature explicit violence or sex (although there will be mild sex scenes). I might reconsider the rating if people find it not adequate!  
> It's also the first time I experiment with second person POV, so I hope you will enjoy. This will probably have something like 7 or 8 short chapters. 
> 
> Warnings for the first chapter: suicidal thoughts and ideation, guns, alcoholism.

_i do not want to have you_

_to fill the empty parts of me_

_i want to be full on my own_

_i want to be so complete_

_i could light a whole city_

_and then_

_i want to have you_

_cause the two of us combined_

_could set it on fire_

\- rupi kaur, milk and honey

 

 

_the emptiness_

 

You are a doctor who forgot how healing is painful. You remember the confusion. The denial. The anger. Especially the anger. The nights you would wake up on the battlefield, only to feel the tiles of your one bedroom flat when you would jump out of your cot, screaming. The anger gave way to nothing. That is how you felt, when you would spend the day lying in bed, watching the four walls around you get smaller and smaller. Nothing.

Your therapist is full of encouraging words, but you're too cynical to believe her. You don't trust the quick movements of her pen on paper, not because of what she sees, but because of what she sees wrong. She sees you sitting behind her desk as a cry for help. It isn't. She sees you as someone who is building walls, because of the way you shut down both Mike Stamford and Harry. You aren't. You accepted Harry's phone, maybe so she could just stop worrying about you so much.

She sees you as a veteran: not a doctor, not a soldier either. You are. You still are a doctor, and a soldier, and she cannot take that away from you. She sees you as a man without purpose. _Create something new_ , she says, and dismisses you with homework: _write a blog_.

You half-believed it would cure you of everything, and yet you do not write, because nothing happens to you. Every day that passes in your life is a testament to the blank page on your screen. And the walls keep getting smaller. The bottles keep accumulating. You meet Harry, once, and some part of your brain tells you that if your alcoholic sister has that kind of reaction upon seeing you, maybe you are more of a useless drunk that you initially thought so.

One morning, you wake up, cheerful from having made a proper resolution. A decision is better than the vast plain of nothingness your life has been. You walk towards your desk, shut the computer screen that has been staring back at you all night, and retrieve the gun from your desk.

It's a pretty thing, really, sleek and black and it fits in your hand just so. You smile at it like you would greet an old friend. Maybe that's what you needed, all these months ago, upon your return. Not Mike Stamford, not Harry, but a friend a little bit more like a gun. Explosive and loud and everything you never were. Even though it might surprise some people, you never really had many friends. Maybe it is better this way.

You stare at the dark eye of the SIG and imagine for a moment how the world would peacefully go on without you. You gaze wavers, and sets on the book that you left on the floor, the one you were trying to read on the day before.

How many good books will you miss?

It's not that you want to die. The gun — it's not your way of going. You'd rather disappear. You'd like to see the world after your physical demise. Travel, a bit, maybe. Look inside the illuminated windows of all those houses, imagine stories about those ordinary people and their ordinary lives. An ordinary life you could not bear to have. Fly around, your shadow illuminated by the Big Ben, its clock ticking away the minutes you cannot feel anymore. Just like the little red-headed boy and his band of friends. Peter Pan, was it? You used to watch that movie on repeat, when you were a child, dreaming about escaping to a world that wouldn't smell like the rancid bottom of a bottle.

You were a lost boy long before you knew it, John Watson.

You lower the gun. Reconsider things. There is no such thing as Wonderland, but you could disappear if you wanted to, couldn't you?

You stand up, empty the bullets from the gun. Move towards the small sink of your kitchen, and let the water fill it entirely. Take your laptop and dump it in the water. Take your mobile, type out a quick message to Harry, before you let it sink as well.

_I'm going away. Don't search for me, don't try to contact me._

 

The next thing you are sure and aware of is the mix of mud and water seeping through your shoes as the cabbie drops you in front of the old farmhouse.

You do not know this, but today marks the first day of spring.

 

 


	2. the cleaning

 

_the cleaning_

 

The house is old and unlike everything you remember from the time you used to visit your grandparents during the long summer days your father had nothing better to do than to drink. It doesn't have the charm it used to, but it is not haunted either so you might as well take your chance here. It's been under your name for years now, between two hills in Sussex, its old wooden skeleton still holding under the sea breeze after all those years.

The floor creaks under your feet as you walk through the rooms, feeling like a ghost amidst a crowd of ghosts, generations-old furniture draped in white sheets.

You spend whatever is left of your pension to buy yourself a new mattress, along with a duvet and a fresh pillow. After the first three days, water starts running again, the boiler is cooperating, and electricity helps you get a bit of light in the evening. The days are still short.

There is a lot to do, but you wouldn't have it any other way. You grate the floors and the whole kitchen before you move towards the bathroom and the second floor. You dust everything, store away the white sheets until it looks like a house where someone might live in.

Midway through April, you move outside to pull at the weeds, cut the invading vine and reposition the tiles that mark the little path to the front door. You fix the roof without breaking your neck, and write a neat list every time you have to cycle to town to get the grocery. In front of the house, the cherry tree has bloomed in shades of white and pale pink.

May begins and you don't stop to think, you repair the outside walls of your property with the bricks one of your new neighbours gave you. You put order back into the hen house and invest in five fat chickens and an aggressive rooster. There is a patch of dried Earth behind the house where you plant tomatoes and cucumbers and radishes and aubergines and lettuce, and every single day as you look out of the window, you wonder if it will grow. If it has taken this soil and made it _its_ soil. If its roots will take, if the summer storms coming your way won't disturb too much the fragile growing.

June arrives and you feast on fresh eggs and the milk that your other neighbour, the old woman, brings you, along with some biscuits and a thermos full of tea. You consider getting a cow, but the fences around your land are too worn out for it to be safe. Instead, you plough and fertilise acres and acres by hand, and come back to the house every night, sore, your mind still blank but just a tiny bit proud at having accomplished something with your bare hands. Maybe once per week, you pick a bit of wild lavender from the garden, and put it under your nose while you laze in the bath.

And then, one day, just like that, you see him for the first time, in the canned products alleyway of the grocery store, of all places. A dog of unknown breed posted at his feet, he's fumbling around jars of honey, not searching for anything but placing every other product behind the single one that reads _HOLMES HONEY._ The cashier is looking at him, annoyed but resigned — this is not the first time, then.

You walk a few metres, your gait uneven, your limp more pronounced on the clean tiles than on the mud that usually claims your footsteps. You pick up the first thing that is in front of you when the man turns his head, shooting you a look that scans through your whole body. He approaches silently, leaning on the shelf, while you concentrate on reading a label you do not understand.

There is a single question. " _Afghanistan or Iraq?_ "

"Afghanistan," you say, "but that was in another life."

When you raise your head, understanding sweeps through your body. The green-blue-gray-dotted incomprehensible irises staring right back at you see you as you are: a doctor, and a soldier. And you. Just you.

 


	3. the meeting

 

 

_the meeting_

 

 

You stand there, wondering if epiphanies are allowed for someone who has seen as much as you have. Yet, when you look at him, you instinctively know that he has lived more than you could ever have.

It takes you a moment, but when your gaze wavers from his eyes, you notice the purple bags under them. The paleness of his skin. The nearly unhealthy slimness of his body.

The dog looks back at you, panting under the summer heath, and for a moment you are taken with the desire to kneel down and pet him — until you notice the harness he is wearing, and think better.

"You're the new one at the end of Baker Street, aren't you?" The man is still staring at you. Reading you. You nod. "Wonderful property. Quite a bit of fruit trees — a good spot for hives, I always thought."

You stand there, befuddled. He raises an eyebrow at you, questioning why you aren't speaking back. He is about to move and leave you alone when the words escape your mouth. "You could," you say. "You could— if you wanted to."

The man smiles. "I'll see you around, then. Come on, Edison, let's go," he says to the dog, and a second later he is out of the store.

Still surprised, you move towards the honey that the man was just rearranging. You pick one jar of _HOLMES HONEY_ , and put it in your basket.

Later that night, when you suck unto a spoonful of pastel yellow honey, you remember the pair of blue eyes on you and let the knee of your bad leg bounce a bit.

When you take out the rest of the groceries, you notice some yeast you did not even know you had bought. _Create something_ , the voice says in your head. Useless advice when you don't want to rehash your thoughts, but creating something with your hands might just be the thing you want to try now.

There is a forgotten bread recipe tucked between two pages of a cookbook, and on the next rainy day, you start your new mission. It is more difficult than what it looks like, but you enjoy it, the texture of the dough under your hand, and playing with it makes you feel like some kind of renowned baker getting ready for the first bunch of the day.

The next day, there is a knock on your door. On the other side, the man is standing there, along with his dog.

"Forgot to ask your name," you say.

"Sherlock Holmes, and you are—"

"John Watson. Come on in, Sherlock Holmes," and because the man seems to be only skin and bones, you add, "I was about to start cooking. Care to talk about those hives of yours over dinner?"

He nods and sits down at the table, the dog curling itself around his feet. You have not cooked for someone other than yourself in years, and your left hand shakes over slightly when you reach for the pots and pans. As you start making dinner, you discuss — or more like let _him_ talk about bees and hives in quick monologues that you barely understand but which fascinates you nonetheless. You cook some pasta with a bit of a fancy sauce, just because this feels like a special occasion. Allowing someone in the house you've spent months working on.

Allowing someone in your home. With Sherlock Holmes in your kitchen, it feels somehow a bit more like it.

"There would be enough place to set three hives at the end of your property, just along the edge where you keep the apple trees. You're obviously thinking about expanding the area you're currently ploughing — maybe for next year or the one after that — but I'll be out of your way if I'm on the far east side of the land. About payment—"

You refuse any sum of money he suggests, and in the end, make him promise to only give you a few jars every year after the harvest. There is no price to name for a bit of company.

You go outside, to show him the exact spot he can take, and when you come back in again, there is a burning smell lingering inside the kitchen. Quickly, you open the oven and throw a slightly calcined bread on the top of it.

"First time making bread, I take it?" he asks, a smirk on his face.

"Yes, and now you're going to taste it with me."

He fakes disgust, but lets you hand him a piece. You munch on the bread for a few seconds before you meet his eyes, and then, you cannot stop laughing. In the smallness of your kitchen, it feels like you have found a friend.

"I wouldn't even feed that to Edison," he says, and the dog cocks his head, interested nonetheless in the food you are sharing.

He leaves a few minutes later, with you promising that you will never make him taste your baking again. How soon will you see him again?

You don't have to wait too long in the end: he comes around the following morning, in the passenger seat of a van, and places his tree hives in the spots you have mentioned yesterday.

You see him again and again, over the course of the next few days, walking towards his hives, but never in full gear — he trusts his little beasts.

You never go out to meet him, you simply continue your work, your ploughing and your fertilising and your planting, but when the afternoons get hot, you always take out two bottles of water on the front porch, and invariably, at the end of the day, the other one is gone.

You meet him at the village, sometimes, but he ignores you without being obvious about it. There is something about him… You slowly come to realise that he isn't particularly avoiding you, but everyone else is avoiding _him_. And so he floats from one place to another, like a ghost that is seen by all but never acknowledged out loud.

You smile when you remember that day in your kitchen, and how good you felt. You think about it for a long time, and in the end, you step inside the town's only psychologist office. You talk for an hour, and it doesn't seem useless anymore. For the first time, you accept the medication, and even the idea to go to the next AA meeting.

It's a small town, and so it shouldn't have come as a surprise to you when you walk into the school's gym and towards the circle of seated people, to see the pair of sky-blue eyes set on you.

Without a second thought, you turn on your heels and walk away.

 

 


	4. the rebirth

 

 

_the rebirth_

 

 

You are a soldier who never forgot about pain. You've had bad days, and today is a bad day. You know tomorrow will be a bad day. You are condemned with the harsh certitude that whatever life you have left in you will be constituted of bad days.

"Give yourself time," the woman in the chair says, "there is nothing easy in being born again."

You huff at the metaphor. Some people say you're cursed with a romantic, poetic mind, but you don't see the poetry in your life anymore.

"No, there is nothing easy in being born again. That's what you're trying to achieve, isn't it? You wanted a new life, by moving here. You cut your previous roots, and transplanted yourself here, thinking that the soil would be better, that you would take faster, that you would flourish. Give yourself the time for these roots to grow."

You recline on your chair, in a posture that could imply that you are thinking about it, even though her words have not passed the invisible barrier surrounding your brain.

"What have you achieved since you arrived here?"

"I've met someone," you say, after a minute. Can he be your root? The reason your feet stay attached to the ground?

She smiles, as if reading your mind. "That's good, that's really good, but don't forget that roots sprout from you, and you only. Therapy, medication, friends, a partner — they are your support. The support that helps you grow in the right direction. I'm glad you've met someone, because it means that you are in the right emotional place to feel connection again. To value other people, to love — whether it be platonically or not. All those things show that you are beginning again, with stronger foundation, and if you give it time, this life could be your best one yet."

You wonder while driving home — in the old Jeep you found stuck in the barn — how many times your roots were cut from under your feet. You remember leaving home at sixteen, your feet bleeding from the broken beer bottle you stepped on in the middle of the night. You remember registering for the army, barely out of university. You remember coming back as a man you didn't recognise, a man with a scar in his shoulder and a limp in his leg. You remember leaving London to come here.

You are left with the acidic taste on your tongue that you have never belonged anywhere. That your roots never had the time to take, really.

You stop the car at the end of your land and step out, breathless.

You don't remember your own birth, John Watson, but you do remember the few times you assisted deliveries. You know how we come unto this Earth the hardest way, through water and blood, breathing the fire-y air for the first time. How our skulls compress to accommodate the small and unique passage to this life. How our bodies are squeezed, and how we protest.

How we scream.

How you screamed.

And how you scream today, your knees hitting the muddy earth, your hands fisting themselves into the short grass as if it were your own hair. You pull and you scream and you feel the rain trickling down your neck, and when you are too tired to protest, you crumble down against the mother earth, wondering if this land will let you take. If this soil is the right for you. If it is the last time you will have to go through the hardship of birth.

You are not an oak, John Watson. You are a blade of grass, and when you turn your face to the night sky, amongst a sea of grass, you are comforted by your smallness. The universe doesn't care about you, John Watson, like it doesn't care about its stars. It moves, because it has to do so, and it is not grudgingly planning a succession of bad days just for you. The universe doesn't care about grass, John Watson, and in that way, you know that happiness isn't forbidden to you.

 

 


	5. the mending

 

_the mending_

 

 

 

You decide to go back to AA on Fridays instead of Tuesdays, and this time you can share in all anonymity. You were never one to believe that sharing your troubles would lift some kind of weight off your shoulders, because you were too often taught to eat your words and send them back from where they came from, but at least the meetings make you feel like you are not alone.

You are not alone when he comes, a few times a week, never saluting you, never accepting the water bottle you still leave behind. You do not understand what you did wrong, what kind of awful words you used this time, without your knowledge of doing so, to scare him away. And so you keep on planting seeds over your land, of attempting to make bread, always with a careful eye through the window on the man and his bees.

That day, that early summer day as grey cotton clouds the sky, you could never have predicted what would happen. You are in your kitchen, dough between your hands, and your eyes are on him, on the dot in the distance. You look down again for a second — a single second is what it took — and when your eyelids sweep back up, the dot is gone.

Not gone, not exactly, but the dark shape is now lying against the ground. _He found a way for this land to take him_ , you think for a split second, before the dog starts barking.

It springs you into action. You leave your dough and your kitchen and your start running in his direction, calling his name, seeing the trembling bodyspasming on the ground. A blade of grass amongst others. _Your_ blade of grass.

"Sherlock, Sherlock," you whisper as you kneel beside him, recognising the symptomatic foaming at his mouth. Edison is already half-under his head, preventing it from hitting the ground again and again and again and again. "Good pup. Good pup, Edi, keep doing that, I'm going to check his pulse."

There is nothing you can do apart from checking his pulse and taking the time. Gradually, the shaking stops, and it's been less than three minutes since the whole ordeal started. Not that bad. You also hated every single second of it.

You gently turn him on his side, the dog moving away to lie against his back as the man starts breathing again in gulps. Distractedly, you push a few curls away from his sweaty forehead, waiting for him to respond.

"You're all right, you're okay," you say, your voice low, before you see the panic settling in his eyes. "It's me— John, you're at my place, down Baker Street, you just had a seizure — it lasted between three and four minutes."

He blinks, trying to collect his nonexistent memory of what just happened. "Edis— Is Edi—"

"He's here, just behind you."

"Okay. Good dog."

"He is. How are you feeling?"

"Wonderfully muddy." You stare at him, not buying his joke. At least he's joking. "Fine," he says, "exhausted."

You help him walk back to the farmhouse, the dog on your heels. He asks for a shower and you let him use your bathroom, and kip on the sofa for a bit. Edi carefully watches you as you taste yet another piece of awful bread, your eyes on the sleeping man.

Later on, you drive him home, and the dulling buzz of the jeep's engine relaxes you both into a conversation.

"You have questions," he lets out. It is not a question in itself, so you wait for him to speak again. His sentences are short, his speech is quick. He wants to get this over quickly. "I'm a drug addict. _Recovering_ drug addict — I haven't used in two years, but still. Drug addict. Used cocaine and heroin injections, mostly, depending on my mood. I overdosed and had a stroke, hence the seizures. That's why you saw me at AA, that day. Too small of a village to get proper NA."

You don't know what to say, your knuckles growing white on the steering wheel. "How often do you get them?"

"Few times per month. Nothing too bad, just not… conductive to the work."

You close your eyes, remembering how you saw him walking in the village, the other day, unbothered by the crowds who were equally avoiding. You wonder how many times it happened, him, falling on the pavement, every muscle of his body contracting in quick spasms. How many people gasped, how many children screamed… Did they ignore him, as they keep on doing so every day? Is he the village's preferred story, the Big Bad Wolf, the one parents tell to their children to scare them off luring men?

For a hot second you hate them all. You _know_ this is the reason of the man's solitude. You are a doctor, you've seen it before, how illnesses and disabilities transform people into ghosts. There is nothing wrong with Sherlock — only a few more bumps on his head, that's all.

You swallow, returning to the present moment. "Do you have a seizure plan?"

He rolls his eyes at you. "They wouldn't have left a half-dead recovering addict leave the hospital without one."

"I mean, do you apply it?"

"As much as I can, yes."

"Who is your emergency contact?"

He hesitates. "No one."

"So you just… have a seizure and nobody knows about it? What if you need help? What if you hit your head?"

He doesn't look at you. His index finger start picking at the side of his thumb's nail. "Ever the doctor, are you? _If_ I need help, Edison will fetch it for me. He's able to open doors, press on an emergency button and my neighbour doesn't live too far away. It's here, by the way, on your left," he indicates by pointing the spot.

You stop the old Jeep in front of an even older trailer. You throat squeezes on itself. You would have predicted a small apartment, or maybe a quaint little cottage handed down from some kind of heritage. The trailer looks like it has been stuck in the same place for so long, its wheels half-sunken into the ground, the grey paint eaten by rust in some places.

You stop the Jeep. He doesn't move to open the door.

"Take my phone number," you try. "It's the farmhouse's landline, but I should be able to buy a mobile sometime soon. Do you have a piece of paper?"

You don't let him have the choice to refuse your offer. His gaze settle on you, while you stare at his hands, gently curled on his lap. "No need, I'll remember."

You state the few numbers and he nods, reaching for the door.

"Sherlock—"

"Yes?"

"I used to drink."

"I know."

Yes, clearly, the AA thing. Maybe he knew even before. It's not like you are a walking health advertisement, and he's observant.

"I don't, anymore."

He waves you off, seemingly annoyed. "Congratulations, then. Don't feel obliged to skip AA on my account."

You gape for a second, before you shake your head. "I'm not skipping it on _your_ account. I'm attending on Fridays."

For the first time since this conversation started, he turns his head towards you, and you wonder if it's surprise that you see in his round, blue eyes, or if it's only a trick of the dying sunlight.

"I just… I don't want to mix— _that_ , and you. That's all." You don't really know how to say it in other words. You're not particularly ashamed, but you're also not keen on making your only acquaintance something of a psychotherapist.

His gaze drops to your lap, and shrugs. "All right."

He opens the door, and as he steps out, you can't help but say, "Really, Sherlock, do call me if you need anything."

He stops for a second, and you know him well enough to understand that it isn't a lie when he says, "I will."

 

 


	6. the caring

 

_the caring_

 

 

He calls you. It surprises you, but he does. It's meaningless conversation at first, just him rambling about his bees or deducing people from the village, adding a few extravagant rumours just to make you laugh. The grocer is in love with the postman, who sometimes leaves anonymous letters under the grocery's door during her morning walk. Mr Kelley is a retired MI6 agent, and he lost part of his hearing due to a grenade exploding and nearly taking half of his body with it. Mrs Hudson, the one down the road, who sometimes brings you cookies, used to be an exotic dancer. You don't believe a word of it, of course, but it makes you smile nonetheless.

Most of the time, over the phone, he sounds just fine, but there are a few occasions where you can hear his breath whistling between his teeth, his words slurring at the end, and you both know what that means even though neither of you comments on it. You _deduce_ that it happens more often than he initially let on. Maybe five or six times since the beginning of the month. Twice per week. Like a clock ticking.

You shake your head when you think about it. How this beautiful human being is subjected to the hazardous moods of his body, ready to take him at any time of the day or night, wherever he is. It's unfair, really. You'd rather want it to be you. You would take it away from him, if you could, because your life is already meaningless, already cursed. He has the energy you don't, anymore. The ardour, the brain, the body. It's really only about that one switch, somewhere in his magnificent brain, which goes off at the worst time.

He calls you one day, as you're sitting by the fire, your hands itching for a drink. You seize the landline as if it is your only link to this reality, to this ground, to this moment in time.

The call starts as it usually does, with a strong " _John_ ," uttered at the other end of it.

"Hi, Sherlock. Everything all right?"

"Yes. Of course. I wanted to know how the hives are holding up."

You step towards the window, trying to distinguish them through the darkness. "Fine, as always. I will ring you, you know, if there's a fire, a threatening Pooh bear or something."

He grumbles on the other end of the line, his answer cut short by some background noise you can barely hear. "Sit _down_ ," he orders, and for a moment you wonder if he's talking to you. You sit down on the nearest chair, like a fool. "Sit, Edison. _Stay_. Sorry, this dog, sometimes—" More noise, something like a chair raking on the floor, and the springs of a mattress. "Edison, sit, don't be an idiot. Edi—"

The word on his lips is cut short, followed by a muffled _bang_.

"Sherlock?!"

Claws tickling the floor.

"Sherlock, _answer_ me."

A dog's whimper.

"Jesus _fuck_ —"

You spring on your feet, torn between staying on the phone for when he regains consciousness, or hanging up to go see if he is all right. He could be bleeding out, you realise. He could have hit his head and got a concussion. You leave the phone behind and grab your coat. You are on the road a minute later, your knuckles white over the steering wheel, sighing with relief at the thought that at least, _at least_ , you know where he lives.

You park your car in a hurry — it must have been five minutes or so, and if Sherlock's attacks are always short, there is a good chance he is conscious at the moment, unless… Unless he has hurt himself.

You knock at the door with the side of your fist, calling out his name. "Sherlock? Sherlock, are you there?"

There's scratching on the other side of the door: Edison. You take a few steps back and ram the door with your shoulder, only to make the whole trailer tremble, without any other result. "Sherlock?"

"Go away." The sound is muffled, the voice irritated.

"Are you okay?" You ask with momentary relief.

"Go away," he repeats, but you will not do anything as such.

You stand in front of the door, powerless, wondering if it will do any good to break the last wall between you and him. In the end, you don't even have to move: there's a scratching sound and, slowly, the door pulls open. You slam your hand on it to prevent it from closing again, and when you step on the landing, notice that Edison was the one to let you in, a tick rope in its mouth attached to the doorknob.

"Good pup," you say, passing your fingers behind his ear, in a rare show of affection. Now that his master is safe, there's nothing much you can do to distract the dog anyway.

You step further into the one and only room of the trailer, quickly taking in your surroundings. It's a mess, really, with books everywhere, and papers, and what you guess is scientific equipment left here and there. Every corner, every sharp edge, every counter and shelf is covered with taped-on coloured styrofoam, the kind that looks like cut-out pool water noodles. Your heart squeezes at their sight, especially the places where the foam looks dented, as if punched in.

It reminds you of that man who lived down your road as a child, the crystal man whose bones would break at any contact. There is nothing stronger than people in a fragile body.

The reflexion only lasts half-a-second in your mind, hitting the corners of your brain in quick, bright sparks, before your eyes set on the curled-up man on the floor.

"Sherlock," you say, extending your hands as you kneel in front of him, Edison by your side, his tail wagging against your flank.

"Just leave."

He must have called you already plunged in darkness because you have to flick the lamp on the bedside table to see him better, to distinguish a bruise forming on the cheek glued to the floor. "I have to check if you—"

"I don't have a concussion. Leave, now."

"Yeah, like that's going to happen," you say, leaning in to get a better look at his face.

It's only then that your nose detects the faintest smell of urine.

His trembling hand pushes your shoulder in an attempt to make you back away, but it's unable to do much more than make you recline back on your heels. "Leave!"

"Let me just check your head first. Can you sit?"

"I don't need a doctor," he bites back.

"How about a friend?"

His shoulders sag, momentarily. You wait what must be a minute or two, but in the end, he puts the flat palm of his hand on the floor and rises into a sitting position, his other hand a fist in his lap. You conduct a quick exam, follow-the-finger-type with a few questions he answers with a bored tone. You both ignore the dark stain between his legs until he rises on his feet.

"Shower," he grumbles, walking past you, bumping into the small round table, which makes a few papers fall to the ground.

You sit on the small bed (there's a Tupperware full of mould on the only chair), determined to wait, and Edison climbs besides you to put his head on your lap. Distractedly, you rub behind his ear again, in slow motions, and it makes your shoulders drop. What have we done to deserve dogs?

Sherlock emerges from the tiny bathroom long minutes later, a towel wrapped around his hips, and you try not to look too much as he picks a set of new clothes before disappearing in the bathroom again.

"Are you going to sit there all night?" he asks from the other side of the door, sounding a bit annoyed.

"No, actually, I wanted to know if you'd want to go back to my place for the night." You say the words before you can even think about what they mean. What exactly are you trying to achieve, here?

He opens the door, a slight smile on his face. Edison lifts his head from your lap, but doesn't run to his master. "What, so you can check on me every couple of hours like they taught you in school?"

"No, you prick, I thought you might be interested in sleeping somewhere less depressing, for a start." It's supposed to be a joke, but his mouth closes in a thin line. "There's _mould_ in here," you add, thinking it would make things better as your chin points at the Tupperware on the chair. It doesn't.

"It's an experiment," he snaps. "I don't need your pity."

"Again, I'm asking as a friend, not as a doctor. Besides, I bought a pack of fancy sheets for the guest room and nobody has slept in them since. Don't make me regret my decision." A silence. "Edison, would you like to sleep in a proper bed, for once?" you ask the dog, playfully.

Edison turns your head towards you, as if understanding, before looking back at Sherlock. He lowers his head on your lap with a whimper, as if trying to convince his master that you are right.

"Oh, _fine_ ," Sherlock gives in with a sigh. "Since you're both conspiring against me. One night."

"One night. Good."

Fifteen minutes later, you are up in the guest room, battling with a pillow cover while Edison is already playfully scratching through the mattress. Sherlock goes to sleep surprisingly fast, probably too tired from his earlier crisis to spend the night doing God-knows what he usually does when he usually calls you in the middle of the night. You stay downstairs, near the fireplace, a glass of cold water in hand, and against Sherlock's words, you wake the grumpy man every two hours to check on him.

In the morning, after barely having slept at all, you start the oven to cook the dough you have prepared yesterday, and start making a new batch on the large island's countertop. You are elbow-deep into flour when you hear footsteps down the stairs, and Sherlock appears, barefoot, in his pyjamas and blue dressing-gown, his hair in a somehow adorable mess of curls, Edison on his heels. The sight of it is so domestic that you feel something deep in your gut. You are unable to hide the smile itching your lips.

"Here," you say, taking the fresh bread out of the oven. "Breakfast."

He eyes you with deliberate hesitation, evidently remembering the last piece of bread you made him taste.

"I promise I got better. Besides, I have— this, to take it with." You open a cupboard, retrieving the golden pot of honey that bears his name.

His eyebrows spring up as you butter a piece of bread with it, and hand it to him. Casually, he leans his back against the counter, his shoulder brushing yours. You prepare yourself a second toast, that you lift in front of you, a smile on your face. "Cheers."

"Thank you," he says, and when your eyes meet, you know this is not about breakfast.

Without a word, you carefully munch unto the piece of bread. "Not that bad, actually."

He huffs. "Pretty good, even."

You turn your head to see the smile spreading on his face. He's close— so close.

You lean in, and when your lips touch his, you find that he tastes like bread and honey.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for your lovely comments! I don't have a chapter count yet, but I have to say that this fic is drawing to an end, there might be 2-3 chapters remaining after this one. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: reference to drug addiction, alcoholism, overdose, strokes. All of this is mentioned to have happened in the past. In general, this is a happy chapter. :)
> 
> Also, this has now a chapter count! Thank you for your lovely comments and support. <333

 

 

_the loving_

 

 

 

 

You kiss him and you kiss him and taste his growing smile under your lips. When you part, he leans back against the counter and ducks his head to take another bite of the piece of bread and honey. You witness the lovely reddening of his cheeks, proportionate to the warmth that has grown inside you.

Neither of you says a thing, because there is nothing to say. It's the most evident thing you ever did in your life.

After breakfast, he ruffles with the dog, bare feet on your wooden floors, while you finish the dishes. He goes upstairs again, to shower and dress, and when you see him again he looks like a slightly different man. More guarded than he was in his state of undress. Yet you know that he is there all the same.

There is work to be done and you drive him back to his trailer, not before exchanging a few pressing kisses, delaying momentary goodbyes until you have to shove him out of the car, laughing.

You call him. He calls you. He stops by, always before and after checking on his bees, and sometimes he gives you a hand with what you're working on outside, distractedly handing you a few bricks as you rebuild a garden wall, the weather definitely too warm for you to wear a shirt. Sometimes, he gives you a hand inside, which mostly turns into snogging sessions on the sofa, and a bit of groping too.

On a common, unspoken accord, you always stop before it becomes something more.

You are not exactly sure why you want to wait. You want to get this right, of course, this _has_ to be right. It feels like doing it for the first time all over again, the quick, guilty kisses in the car, the occasional hand-holding, the looks, exchanged back-and-forth. You giggle under your breath every time you reflect upon the fact that you've got a _boyfriend_ , now, not that you ever agreed on that particular term. Boyfriend, because you definitely feel fifteen again, and maybe that's the good part of being reborn. The anxiousness, the careful touches, the hesitation, here and there, that never lasts long in the end.

Still, you wait, because there are a few questions to answer on both sides, a few tests to be done. Substance abuse has never been kind on intimacy, and your body isn't as young as it once was.

And then, it happens, one night, on the tiny bed of his trailer. A whispered _yeah?_ leading to a quiet _yes_ , and there you are, making hurried love like clumsy teenagers on the edge of the apocalypse.

"Why bees?" you ask, afterwards, as your hand trails over the milky skin of his forearm, smoothing the hair over the small, nearly invisible dots.

The corner of his mouth twitches, and not happily. "I had a stroke, few years ago when I last OD-ed. That's when I started having seizures, but I went right back to the drugs anyway, mostly to piss off my brother. I found myself in a flat of an… acquaintance, got high, lounged around for a few days. I had had a few seizures up to that point, and well, what was the point of anything, anymore, if I couldn't do what I was made to do?" A pause. "That's when I saw it, by the window — there was a bee. Must have got through the door, because all windows were closed. It was buzzing so loudly and trying to escape, banging against the window, up and up until it would fall down and try the other corner. I remember thinking, _what an idiotic little thing, it's so taken with the sight of freedom that it can't see the glass hurting it._ I was half-conscious at best but I went and opened the window for it anyway."

"That's all it took? A bee?"

"Nope," he says, with a point of irony. "Lost my balance and fell three stories first. Weeks in the hospital do _wonders_ against drug addiction."

You wince, drawing him closer to you, until his cheek rests on the scar of your shoulder.

"Have you ever heard about telling the bees?"

"No. What is it?"

"It's an old tradition amongst beekeepers, which consists of telling the bees about important events in one's life. Deaths, in particular, since bees have been considered to be a natural bridge towards the afterlife. Psychopomps, if you wish."

You hum. "Are you talking to your bees, then?"

He shrugs. "Free therapy."

"And what have you been telling them?"

"Lately? It's been mostly about you."

You smile, kissing his shoulder.

You share a second round, somehow more vigorous than the first, maybe because you are both aware that the universe is a vast place, aware of the tenuous link of events that put you both here and now, between two hills in Sussex. You try show his body everything you are unable to say with words.

And then, right in the middle of everything, a crack, and a crash, and the world tips one way. Chaos: your head hits the corner of the counter, fortunately taped with bubble wrap, but a millisecond later he falls on top of you, cutting your breath and sending your head to the floor. Every single item on the counter and on the table has fallen to the ground, and Edison left his cushion to investigate, which involves barking and climbing on top of the both of you.

A pause. Your eyes meet his. And then, you can't stop laughing.

You laugh so much it hurts your sides, and Edison keeps on barking, alarmed, wondering what kind of game you two have invented just now.

"Are you alright?" you ask, when you regain control on your breath.

"Yes. Edison, get off now, you're heavy."

" _You're_ heavy."

You extricate yourself from each other and stand carefully, watching your steps as not to make the whole trailer tip again. He reaches for the sheet of the bed, and he is already outside when you slip your jeans on.

"We broke the damned thing," he says, his mouth in a fine line, when you join him outside. He pokes at one of the wheels with the tip of his foot, where it has broken and sunken into the ground. Your eyes follow the bottom of the trailer, until you notice the place where the old metal has split, revealing a few centimetres of the tiles of the small bathroom. Your heart sink as you witness the water seeping into the grass, from the broken plumbing. This does not look reparable.

He opens his mouth, ready to speak, but you beat him to it. "Move in with me."

"I'm _sorry_?"

"Move in with me."

"I can't. You know I can't."

He looks at you, and you see it, everything in his eyes that he daren't say. _You know I can't, because I'm a liability. You know I can't, because your counters have sharp edges and your wooden floors are hard and there are a thousand ways for this to go wrong. You know I can't, because I don't wish to spend the rest of my life inflicting myself on you, because I don't want you to spend it worrying about the next second and the next time you will find me lying on the floor. You know I can't, because I'm a drug addict who still struggles sometimes, and because I can be a rightful dick on my best days. You know I can't, because we would tear each other's throats after a week._

You look at him, and you think about everything you daren't say. _You know you can, because I would make it okay. You know you can, because I will cut and sand every sharp corner of the house, I will carpet every floor if you need me to. You know you can, because I wish to spend the rest of my life with you, because I don't want to spend it worrying about the next second and the next time you will be lying on the floor without me by your side to hold you. You know you can, because I'm an alcoholic who still struggles sometimes, and because I can be a rightful dick on my best days. You know you can, because winter is long and I don't want to spend it alone. You know you can, because I can show you, in this home I have built for you without knowing it yet: you are a blade of grass, Sherlock Holmes, and the wind cannot break you, how many times you fall._

Instead, you say, "You can. Move in with me."

 

 

 


	8. the growing

 

_the growing_

 

 

  

"Have you written it down yet?"

You wrap your arms around him, resting your cheek on his shoulder, disturbing the sheets of your bed in the process. His body sags against yours, as he ruffles through his curls with one hand. "No. I'll do it now."

You kiss his shoulder and watch as he stands up, his balance a bit awkward, Edi planted between his legs. You’re still adamant on letting the dog out of the room when you have sex — Edison is the kind of protective beast that'll jump on the bed either to protect his master or to try to understand what kind of game you're playing — but you let him in for the night, when Sherlock is more vulnerable to seize. Case in point, he did, just yesterday. You were busy snogging each other when Edi had jumped on the bed, plastering himself against Sherlock's back so he wouldn't fall off the side. You'll always remember it, the look in his eyes when he understood what was about to happen, when he whispered _no, not now, I don't want to_. He grabbed your hands, and you held him against the mattress through it until his body calmed down.

And now he is ruffling through Edi's fur, as if nothing had happened at all. "C'mon, Edison, let's fetch some breakfast downstairs and let the old man get some sleep."

You laugh and throw a pillow at him, hitting his back. He squeals dramatically and jogs downstairs, Edison yapping and jumping around.

Eventually, you descent downstairs, to find Sherlock sprawled on the sofa, his notebook in hand, and bread with honey waiting on the kitchen counter.

For a bright second, your heart swells. A year ago, this house was a wooden shell, empty but for ghosts of the past. A year ago, this garden was rotten with weeds and high grass. A year ago, the man lounging on your sofa was a stranger.

How things change.

Not all of it was easy. Sherlock moved a few days after the incident with his trailer, and you spent the rest of the week buying rounded tables and carpets for the living room and the bedroom. Against all odds, you did not plaster your home with bubble wrap and styrofoam, because when Sherlock stops being a git and actually listens to Edi, who always sees a seizure coming, he has the time to lie down and avoid a few bruises.

Not all of it was easy. The long winter days, when the bees and the garden was asleep, when it was too cold to work outside, you sometimes thought you would go crazy. Days when you shouted at each other, without meaning it. Days of sulking on the sofa, days of inexplicable anger. Days of missed therapy. Days of post-AA blues. Days that were exhausting, but always days when you would find yourself in each other's arms by the time the night sky was pulled over the Sussex hills. Life, made more bearable by his presence.

Arms wrap around your middle as you stare out of the kitchen window. A chin rests on your shoulder.

"You were too far away," he says, his curls tickling your chin. "Still worried about the garden?"

You hum, leaning in his embrace.

"Don't be. You did everything right. We'll get Edison out later today and we'll go see. The frost is over, I'll bet we'll be able to see the first sprouts coming out."

You go out later that day, as he suggested, carefully watching your steps as you walk over the land you have seeded last summer. It's preposterous to think that the effort of your work being rewarded has anything to do with your personal growth, yet you cannot stop but wonder if this land has taken them, as much as it has taken you. One seems inevitable to the other.

"There," Sherlock says, pushing away a bit of dirt with the tip of his shoe, to reveal the first sprout. "You did that," he says, as if it's the most incredible thing you have ever achieved. Maybe it is.

 _Create something_ , the voice reminds you.

"I did."

You did.

Tomorrow, there will be bread and honey on the breakfast table, and when his hands rip the date off the calendar at the wall, it will mark the first day of spring.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone, for having followed this WIP, left comments and kudos behind. Your support, as always, is what makes this possible. <3


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